Gov’t steps into Voisey’s strike

The first week of 2011 saw the public release of a candid and rather damning report by a Newfoundland and Labrador government-appointed commission on the 17-month strike by 120 members of United Steelworkers Local 9508 at Vale’s Voisey’s Bay nickel-copper-cobalt mine in Labrador.

• Last October, in response to yet another breakdown in contract negotiations, the provincial government appointed John Roil, Randell Earle and Brian Gatien to the Industrial Inquiry Commission, with a mandate to determine both sides’ bargaining positions, propose compromises, and record the strike’s broader ramifications.

The newly released first part of the report deals with the bargaining positions and proposes compromises, while the final part of the report, due in late February, will look at the wider labour and societal issues. With respect to the latter, the commission writes that, for the two local aboriginal groups that have impacts and benefits agreements with the mine, “the negative social impacts of the strike on their communities have been devastating.”
The commissioners’ exasperation with both sides in the dispute seeps through every page, given that the bargaining positions are not that far apart, and Vale already settled with striking Steelworkers last summer in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ont., where wages are actually lower.
As the commission notes, the Voisey’s strike has lasted longer for several reasons: Vale’s ability to use replacement workers under the radar owing to the mine’s remote location; the small size of the bargaining unit, which can be more easily supported financially by the national union; a firm desire by the Steelworkers to link contract terms such as the length of any collective agreement to those agreed to in Sudbury; and the personal animus between the two negotiating teams, and their overt inflexibility.
The commission blasts Vale directly, stating that the company’s low level of cooperation with the inquiry “seemed to send a clear message to (the) union that Vale did not view the inquiry process as important or useful” and that “the employer maintains that it has a desire to conclude a collective agreement, but its actions and reactions send the opposite message.”
The commission also criticizes Vale for trying to bypass union negotiators and present its collective-agreement offer directly to union members, commenting that “this behaviour demonstrates disrespect for the role of the bargaining agent.”
The commission was equally curt with the Steelworkers, writing that “the union in these negotiations appears to have objectives that reach beyond this particular collective agreement,” and “a union must always ask itself: when have the local employees endured enough sacrifice for the objectives in a national struggle?”
Describing how both sides have “contributed to an unhealthy negotiating environment where collective bargaining deteriorates and trust evaporates,” the commission proposes that the current lead negotiators be replaced.
Vale responded that it “disagrees with the overall conclusions and direction of the report.” It re-emphasized its determination not to have the Voisey’s Bay collective agreement end at the same time as the Sudbury-Port Colborne one so that it would no longer be vulnerable to a Canada-wide strike in a few years. In fact, Vale is offering a five-year collective agreement to Voisey’s Bay workers, which it predicts would “stabilize the labour relations climate” at the mine.
The Steelworkers accepted the report and its proposed compromise collective agreement, highlighting its criticisms of Vale, but publicly ignoring its withering evaluation of the union’s negotiating tactics. Union members are now voting on accepting the commission’s proposed settlement, which Vale has rejected.
If Vale continues to reject the commission’s proposed collective agreement, the Steelworkers are calling for the provincial government to step in firmly with a binding third-party settlement.

• As we go to press, Cliffs Natural Resources has tabled a friendly, all-cash offer to acquire Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines for $17.25 per share, or about $4.9 billion, including debt. That’s a 30% premium to recent trading, and Cliffs says it will have to delve into the capital markets to finance the offer.

Cliffs says Thompson’s substantial iron ore assets in Quebec and Labrador will diversify its customer base with expanded seaborne presence, and position it as a “top ten global iron ore producer.”